


Operation Bear Hunt

by vivvav



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Gen, The AFR Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:16:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29929863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivvav/pseuds/vivvav
Summary: Ren and Makoto's daughter tries to lure out a bear.
Relationships: Amamiya Ren/Niijima Makoto, Niijima Makoto/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 12
Kudos: 37





	Operation Bear Hunt

Hanami sat in the corner of the living room, framing Ren and Futaba with her fingers the same way Uncle Yusuke always did. She didn’t exactly know why Yusuke did it, but apparently it was very important to the artistic process, and she was trying to draw her dad and aunt having lunch together in her big sketchbook. As she grabbed the orange crayon to start on Futaba, the adults were having their own discussion about Makoto’s upcoming birthday.

“Yeah, I’ve got her present already” Ren said. “She’s taken an interest in kabuki lately, so I got theater tickets.”

“That’s kind of weak, isn’t it?” Futaba leaned towards Ren with a mocking expression. “Don’t you usually go a lot bigger? Has the great romantic finally lost his touch?”

“I’ll have you know Makoto and I do romantic things for each other all the time.” Ren huffed defensively. “This is just her latest interest, so I thought it’d be nice to indulge it as soon as possible, and her birthday presents a good excuse.”

“Uh, yeah, by the way, should we be talking about that in the same room as…” Futaba tilted her head towards Hanami. “Kids aren’t the best at keeping secrets.”

“It’s fine, she’s drawing. She’s not paying attention to a word anyone’s saying.”

“Oh yeah?” Futaba looked over to the girl in question. “Hey, Hanami!” She waited for a moment, but no response. “Hanami! Over here!” Again, no response. Futaba turned back to Ren. “Well that’s annoying. How do you get her attention when she’s drawing?”

“Hey, Bunny” Ren said calmly.

“Huh?” Hanami snapped out of her drawing trance and looked up at Ren. “Yes, Daddy?”

“Your Aunt Futaba has something to tell you.”

“What is it?” Hanami looked at Futaba with excitement, bouncing in place a little.

“Uh…” Futaba was put on the spot. She hadn’t thought this far ahead when she challenged Ren’s claim. She decided to go with the first thing she could think of, which was giving her niece a little wave. “Hi?”

“Hi, Aunt Futaba!” Hanami waved back fervently. “I love you!”

“My heart!” Futaba clasped her hands to her chest and leaned back in her chair dramatically. “It’s so nice to have nieces. You can’t get that kind of adorableness from a lizard.”

“What, Azrael isn’t affectionate enough for you?” Ren asked sarcastically.

“I dunno…” Futaba shrugged. “Azrael might be, in his own lizardy way. But chameleons are pretty hard to read. Nieces are easier.”

“It must be because they’re fellow mammals.” Ren snorted. “Well, jury’s still out on whether YOU’RE actually a mammal, but still-“

“Har dee har. Getting back on subject…” Futaba paused to sip her coffee. “I think you could do better than kabuki tickets. Something more personal, you know? She’s coming up on five years since making detective, right? Maybe something that celebrates that.”

“What, like a ‘World’s Best Detective’ mug?”

“No, something cooler than that! Ooh! What if you put together a scrapbook of all her case files?”

At this point Hanami was getting closer to the adults, trying to get a better view. She wanted to try some technique Yusuke had shown her that he said made pictures pop out more. She couldn’t remember what it was called. It started with a ‘Ha’ sound. ‘Hachi’, maybe? All she knew was that you draw a bunch of lines next to each other and that makes stuff look more real, and while Hanami didn’t know how that made things more real, she did like drawing a bunch of lines next to each other. As she tried to find the right angle to continue her drawing, she started picking up bits and pieces of Ren and Futaba’s conversation.

“I don’t have access to her case files” Ren said.

“I could access them for you.”

“The last thing Makoto wants is you hacking the police, Futaba.”

“It doesn’t have to be a hack. I could probably request her records through official channels.”

“Don’t you need a valid reason to do that?”

“I could say I’m opening an investigation on her based on some rumors?”

“Ok, I take back what I said before. THAT’S the last thing Makoto wants you doing.” Ren looked at Futaba with pity. “If she found out a fraudulent investigation was opened on her, especially for such a pointless reason, she’d destroy you with her bare hands.”

Ren heard a loud gasp in his immediate vicinity and looked to see Hanami standing right next to him, her sketchbook and crayons dropped on the floor.

“What did you just say about Mommy!?” Hanami asked in a panic.

“What, that she’d break us with her bare hands?” Ren gave Hanami a warm smile and rubbed the top of her head, taking care not to let his fingers get tangled in the labyrinthine tangles of her voluminous hair. “Don’t worry, Bunny, I was just kidding. Your mom’s not gonna hurt me or Aunt Futaba.”

“Oh… ok.” Hanami picked up her art supplies and backed up a bit, trying to get back to her drawing. But in the moment, it was pretty hard to focus after finding out that big surprising thing she just heard.

Hanami’s mom had bear hands. And Hanami wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but it sounded really incredible.

* * *

Hanami spent a while wondering what her mom having “bear hands” meant. She didn’t think she could just ask Makoto. If she hadn’t shown Hanami her bear hands, that probably meant it was of those grown-up secrets adults said she was too young to know, which meant her dad probably wouldn’t tell her either. Which meant if she wanted to get to the bottom of this, she had to go to the smartest person she knew after her parents.

Ryoko was parked on the floor in front of the TV, her arms clutched tightly around her stuffed police bear Chief as she watched an exciting hero anime she’d just discovered. It was the middle of the episode and the hero who could turn into animals was having a tense conversation with the bad guy scientist about his powers.

“I can’t believe you were the one gifted with the power of the Nature Spark” Dr. Tsume said as he approached the captive hero, his rival strapped to an examination table and trapped behind a cubic plexiglass cell. “The greatest scientific phenomena in all recorded history, and you use it on frivolous heroics.”

“And what would you use it for?” Zoo-Man asked. “Creating even more powerful hybrid monsters!?”

“My chimeras aren’t abominations, they’re-“

“Ryoko! Hey, Ryoko!”

Hanami came running into the room, sliding along the carpeted floor as she approached her older sister, almost crashing into her.

“Hanami, quiet!” Ryoko pressed a finger against Hanami’s lips. “I’m watching TV!”

“But I got something important to talk about!”

“What?”

“What are bear hands?”

“That’s it!?” Ryoko held up Chief and pointed to the end of his arm. “A bear’s hands are called ‘paws’. Now let me watch my show!”

“But-“

“QUIET!” Ryoko pointed at the TV. “This is the important part!”

“-don’t even understand the full potential of your full morphogenic abilities” Dr. Tsume said.

“It’s just turning into animals” Zoo-Man said. “There’s not much to understand.”

“Oh, how wrong you are.” Dr. Tsume started typing into the control pad on his high-tech gauntlet and a squad of cyborg spiders climbed up from under the exam table, crawling to different spots on Zoo-Man’s body.

“What are you planning on doing!?”

“Some very fun experiments.” Dr. Tsume grinned, fully showing off the sharp bestial teeth that resulted from his genetic experiments on his own body. “I’ve been scanning you as you transform, and I think I can hack your powers to bring out their full potential with some simple stimulation of key nerves on your body.”

Dr. Tsume began typing rapidly, the spiders biting different areas on Zoo-Man’s body. One bite over his left leg caused it to turn into a horse’s leg for a moment before turning back. One bite above his sternum caused his neck to turn into a giraffe’s, the rapid extension banging his head against the wall of his cell. A bite on his left elbow turned the fingers on his left hand into tentacles for a moment. Zoo-Man grunted in pain the entire time this was happening.

“Ooh, that one was interesting” Dr. Tsume said. “I think… if I have this right… and I have this group do this…”

Four spiders lined up along Zoo-Man’s right side, one on his neck, one on his bicep, one at his wrist, and one at his waist. Dr. Tsume had all four of them bite him at once, and the flesh and bone of his hand started to swell and make cracking sounds. Zoo-Man’s right hand rapidly grew and changed shape, his hand turning into an entire full-grown bear, sprouting out of his wrist from the center of its back.

“Wow!” Ryoko leaned forward, getting even closer to the TV. “I’ve never seen a transformation show like this before!”

“BEAR HAND!” Hanami jumped to her feet. “BEAR HAND!” She pointed at the screen and looked at Ryoko. “BEAR HAND!”

“Yeah.” Ryoko gave her sister an annoyed look. “Aaannnd?”

“BEAR HAND!” Hanami shouted one more time before running out of the room. Ryoko watched her for a second then turned back to the TV.

“Guess it was too scary for her. What a baby.”

* * *

“Psst. Ryoko.”

“No.”

“But it’s important!”

“Go to sleep, Hanami.”

The lights were off and it was past bedtime, but Hanami couldn’t sleep. Now that she knew her mother’s hands could turn into living bears, her brain just wouldn’t calm down. She really wanted to see the bear hands for herself, but again, if her mom hadn’t shown them to her before, she probably wouldn’t if Hanami just asked. Hanami figured she’d have to lure the bears out on their own somehow.

“What do bears like?”

“What?”

“I wanna meet a bear. How do I do that?”

“You gotta go outdoors or something.”

“There’s lots of animals outside! How do I get one to find me?”

“I don’t know. Bears like food. Try having a picnic.” Ryoko yawned. “Now shut up. It’s time to sleep.”

* * *

“So, anything exciting going on at the station today?” Ren asked over morning coffee.

“Well, that’s not the kind of thing you know ahead of time in my line of work” Makoto said. “Hopefully, things will be business as usual.”

“That so?” Ren looked up from the paper at Makoto. “Because I heard from Ohya that there are murmurs of Commissioner Kaburagi finally considering retirement, and I imagine you’d want everything running even better than usual if her replacement’s being considered.”

“Whoever Ohya heard that from doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Commissioner Kaburagi will probably never retire. She’ll die at her desk or not at all.” Makoto caught Ren smirking at the hint of disappointment in her voice and straightened her posture as she changed her tone. “Not that I wish for her to retire before she’s ready, of course. She’s an excellent public servant and one of the most qualified people in the police to-“

“MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY!” Hanami ran into the room, still in her pajamas and with half of her hair obscuring her face.

“Oh thank goodness”. Makoto sighed in relief as she was saved by the freshly-awake four-year-old. She leaned down as Hanami reached her and started to groom the girl’s hair a little, at least enough to get it behind her head instead of in front of it. “Good morning, Hanami. Is something on your mind?”

“Can we go to the park today? We can have a picnic!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, honey. I’m too busy for that kind of thing today, but maybe we can go next weekend.”

“Aww…” Hanami started sulking. “But I wanted to go real soon.”

“I could take you and your sister to the park today” Ren said. “Someone sent my office a box of spiders and Mishima freaked out and tossed it across the room when he opened it so now the place is being fumigated.”

“Shouldn’t you be working from your home office then?” Makoto asked.

“I can sneak off for a couple hours. I can send Mishima on some errand so he doesn’t call and the girls and I can have a great time.”

“Well there you go!” Makoto turned back to Hanami. “Your dad can take you on a picnic today!”

“But I wanna go on a picnic with you, Mommy!” Hanami looked up at Makoto, pouting with big sad eyes.

“I just can’t today, Hanami. I wish I could, but they need me at the station.” Makoto picked Hanami up and gave her a hug. “But you’ll still have plenty of fun with Dad, right, Ren?”

Makoto and Hanami looked at Ren who was suddenly slumped over on the dining table, completely deflated.

“Ren? What’s wrong!?”

“Hanami doesn’t want to spend time with me anymore” Ren mumbled into his hands. “Now you’re both of the girls’ favorite. I was fine when it was just Ryoko who liked you more than me, but this is too much.”

“Oh dear.” Makoto put Hanami down and whispered in her ear. “You better let your dad know how much you love him. I think his feelings are hurt.”

Realizing there were more important things in the moment than Makoto’s secret bear hands, Hanami scurried over to Ren and hugged his leg.

“Don’t cry, Daddy! A picnic with you would be super fun too!”

* * *

The picnic was indeed fun. Ren, Hanami, and Ryoko all enjoyed lunch in Inokashira Park, appreciating an assortment of food Ren ordered from Haru’s cafe ahead of time. Just picking up the food added a substantial amount of time to the outing, as Haru loved taking any time she could to play with her friends’ children, and Ren wound up having to help her boyfriend Masaru cover the work she wasn’t doing. After about forty minutes of impromptu games, Ren finally managed to convince Haru to let him and the girls leave for their picnic while the food they’d bought from her was still fresh, and she merrily let them go on their way.

Still, after they got home and Ren returned to work, Hanami quickly became discontented. Ryoko took notice.

“What’s wrong with you?” the older sister asked.

“My picnic plan didn’t work, so I need to figure out another way to see a bear” Hanami answered. “What do bears like besides picnics?”

“Why are you asking me all these questions about bears?”

“‘Cause you’re a bear expert! You’ve got Chief, you watch TV shows with bears in them, you even have picture books about bears that you can read on your own! I can’t even read yet!”

“That doesn’t mean…”

Ryoko’s words trailed off as she wondered if Hanami had a point. Hanami wasn’t right about a lot of things, but she was usually right about how smart Ryoko was. And Ryoko did have a lot of bear stuff. It’s not like bears were her favorite animal. She didn’t even know if she had a favorite. But still, she figured she knew a lot about them.

“Ok… uh…” Ryoko thought back on all the bear stuff she knew, trying to think what would attract a bear if not a picnic. “I think bears like tea parties.”

“They do?”

“Winnie the Pooh does.” Ryoko grabbed a Pooh picture book from the little bookshelf in their room and opened to a page showing him at a party with his friends. “See? Bears like to party with their friends like people do. If you wanna meet a bear, maybe you should have a party.”

“Ok then, let’s do it!” Hanami ran over to her toy chest. “We gotta get all our stuffed animals!”

“We can’t do it now!” Ryoko put her book back. “We just got back from the park, and Dad’s too busy working to take us again!”

“That’s fine.” Hanami started pulling stuffed animals out of the chest. “The bear I’m looking for isn’t in the park. It’’ll be in our house.”

“There’s no bear in our house!”

“Yuh-huh!” Hanami tip-toed over to Ryoko and whispered in her ear. “It’s a secret bear!”

“What’s a secret bear!?”

“Well if I told you that it wouldn’t be a secret!” Hanami grabbed a bunch of stuffed animals with her right arm and grabbed Ryoko’s wrist with her left hand, running into the living room. “Now let’s set up the party!”

* * *

“I’m home, everyone.”

Makoto was exhausted as she stepped through the door. Being an Assistant Commissioner was more desk work than field work, so when she got a last-minute call to help with some martial arts training at the police academy, she jumped at the chance to do something more active. Though seeing how sore she was after coaching the whole class through some shoulder throws, she wondered if she’d been getting slack in her usual exercise routine. Then again, Makoto’s regular workout could hardly be called light, so maybe it meant that she was starting to feel her 30s. Neither of these thoughts were particularly kind to her.

“MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY!”

“Mom’s back! Mom’s back”

Something very kind came in the form of Makoto’s beloved daughters rushing to welcome her home. While their smiling faces and loving hugs couldn’t heal her tired body, it was always a mood lifter.

“Hi, girls!” Makoto bent over and pulled her girls into a hug. “Did you have fun with your dad at the park today?”

“THERE’S NO TIME FOR THAT” Hanami yelled in Makoto’s ear. She grabbed her mother’s wrist and tugged as hard as she could, trying to lead Makoto into the living room. “YOU GOTTA COME TO OUR PARTY!”

“What party?” Makoto let Hanami pull her along, seeing the girls had set up a little tea party around the living room table using stuffed animals and a plastic tea set Haru had given them a while back. The cups and plates were all empty, of course, but it was a cute scene all the same.

“Here.” Ryoko patted a pillow on the floor. “We saved you a seat at the head of the table.”

“Why thank you, girls.” Makoto knelt down on the pillow, picking up the little pink plastic cup in front of her. “May I have some tea, please?”

“Here you go.” Ryoko sat down next to Makoto with the toy teapot and pretended to pour her mother a cup. “I hope you like Da Hong Pao.”

“Oh my, how extravagant.” Makoto chuckled as her tea was ‘poured’. “How do you know about that tea, Ryoko?”

“We saw Aunt Haru earlier today. I asked her what the fanciest tea in the world was.” Ryoko put the pot down and pretended to take a long sip of tea with her pinky extended, giving an exaggerated sigh of relief. “Only the most sophisticated grown-ups can appreciate it, so it’s my favorite now.”

“Well of course it is, you’re a very sophisticated young lady.” Makoto took a faux-sip. “And it’s been brewed to perfection. Are you enjoying the fancy tea, Hanami?”

Hanami didn’t respond, staring intently at Makoto’s hand.

“Hanami?” Makoto leaned forward and looked into the girl’s red eyes with her own. “Is something wrong?”

“She’s waiting for a bear” Ryoko said.

“Ryoko!” Hanami turned to her sister and shushed her, whispering loud enough for Makoto to hear “That’s a secret, remember?”

“You think Mom’s not gonna notice a bear showing up?” Ryoko asked.

“You want a bear at your tea party?” Makoto smiled at Hanami. “I can help you with that.”

“Really!?” Hanami’s eyes widened. Was she finally going to get to see the bear hands?

“Of course.” Makoto stood up and left the room. “I’ll be back in a second.”

Hanami was shaking with excitement. Her mom had probably just left the room because the bear hand transformation was scarier than on TV and she didn’t want to upset Ryoko. Any second now, Makoto was going to walk back into the room bear-first, attached to its back by her wrist.

“Here it is!”

Hanami’s excitement quickly died as she saw Makoto had just gone to her and Ryoko’s room and gotten Chief. She placed him at the head of the table.

“Thank you for the tea, girls. But I should check on your dad and get dinner started. Chief can take my spot at the tea party.”

Ryoko began pouring Chief a fresh cup of tea and Hanami groaned as Makoto walked away. Makoto stopped for a moment and looked back at her youngest child.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. We’ll play more later. I promise.”

Defeated, Hanami buried her head in her arms.

“That’s the wrong bear” Hanami mumbled with her mouth pressed into her forearm.

“I don’t know why you’re so sad about it” Ryoko said. “This wasn’t ever gonna get a real bear to show up.”

“What do you mean?” Hanami turned her head enough to peek at Ryoko with one eye.

“The party was all pretend. We didn’t even have any real food. That’s what attracts bears.”

“And you knew that!?”

“Well duh.” Ryoko took another sip of her pretend tea.

“Then why did we have this tea party!?”

“Because this tea set was a present from Aunt Haru, and it would be rude if we never used it.” Ryoko smiled as she looked at all the stuffed animals with their cups. “This was nice. We should play tea party more often.”

“But what about the bear!? What kind of food do bears like!?”

“Honey.” Ryoko spoke plainly at first, but then her eyes widened as she had an epiphany. “Oh! Next time we can have a real tea party with real tea! And we can put honey in it! Aunt Ann says some people do that to make it taste better.”

Ryoko began to ramble about various tea condiments and British tea time customs Ann had taught her about, but Hanami looked towards the kitchen as Makoto began going through the cupboards. Hanami knew they had honey in the house, her parents used it as an ingredient in all kinds of stuff. And so a plan began to form in Hanami’s head. Later tonight, she’d get to see the bear hands for real.

* * *

It was the middle of the night and Makoto felt herself being pulled out of sleep by the feeling of something moist pressing onto her hand.

“Not tonight, Ren” Makoto mumbled.

“Hm?” Ren stirred awake. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” Makoto felt her hand getting moister, something wet being spread all over its surface. “Quit kissing my hand.”

“I’m not kissing your hand. But I could be.” Ren took on a mischievous tone as he grabbed Makoto’s arm and brought her hand to his face, placing a kiss on the back. He tasted something sweet and sticky. “You sly minx!”

“What?”

“You tricked me into kissing you so I could taste honey? Feeling adventurous tonight, Queen?”

“What are you-“ Makoto pulled her hand back and touched it with her other hand. She’d been too groggy to identify the substance before, but bringing her fingertip up to her tongue, there was no mistaking it now. “Why is my hand covered in honey!?”

“Is it working?” Hanami’s voice called out from the dark. “Are you there, bear?”

“Hanami!?”

Ren turned on a light as Makoto sprang up, seeing Hanami standing next to the bed with a jar of honey in one hand and a spoon in the other. Makoto got a look at her own hand, seeing it was thoroughly coated in honey, much of which was dripping down the rest of her arm and onto the bedsheets. As Makoto and Ren each began the process the whole scene, Makoto’s mind was flooded with anger and confusion while Ren just started laughing. Which was good for Hanami, because it meant in the immediate moment, Makoto’s ire was drawn to Ren instead of her.

“Why are you laughing!?”

“Because it’s funny!” Ren pointed to Hanami. “Our kid snuck into our room to cover you in honey while you slept!”

“And this amuses you? Did you put her up to it?”

“I can promise you I had nothing to do with it. I’m just enjoying the show.”

“For the love of-“ Realizing she’d get nowhere with Ren, Makoto turned to Hanami. “Hanami, just what do you think you’re doing?”

“I wanna see your hands turn into bears” Hanami answered.

“You want to see what!?”

Makoto and Ren got out of bed, Ren taking the honey and putting it back in the pantry while Makoto threw the sticky bedspread in the laundry and washed her hands and Hanami’s, which had gotten all sticky as she fumbled with the honey in the dark. Afterwards, the two of them sat Hanami down back in their bedroom and learned about the entire “bear hand” hypothesis. Makoto had her face buried in her palms for practically the entire explanation. She pulled her hands out of her line of sight as Hanami finished her story, noticing Ren had a big beaming smile on his face.

“What are you smiling about now?” Makoto asked Ren.

“Hanami didn’t want to go to the park with you instead because she likes you better, she just wanted to see your hands turn into bears.” Ren let out a sigh of relief. “I’m not the least-favorite parent after all!”

“Well I’m glad that’s off your mind at least.” Makoto shook her head and looked back at Hanami. “So you heard your dad say ‘bare hands’ and thought my hands could turn into bears?”

“Not ’til I saw Ryoko’s show.” Hanami looked at Makoto with disappointment. “So your hands really don’t turn into bears?”

“That kind of thing is impossible, Hanami. And even if it were, I wouldn’t want them to.”

“Why not? It sounds neat!”

“Hanami…” Makoto sighed. This conversation was not going how she wanted it to go. “If this was on your mind, why didn’t you just ask me about it? Why all the tricks?”

“I thought it was a grown-up secret and that you wouldn’t tell me ‘cuz I’m little.”

“Hanami, we don’t keep secrets like that from-“

“Hold on, Makoto.” Ren cut off his wife with a raised hand. “Let’s not say anything untrue. Poor communication is the cause of all this.” Ren leaned forward to lower his gaze to Hanami’s level. “Now Bunny, it’s true that your mom and I keep some stuff secret from you and Ryoko, but we have good reasons. Sometimes it’s because we want it to be a fun surprise, like a birthday present. Sometimes it’s just because we don’t want you to worry about things you can’t control, like all the times I’m in a fight with other Diet members over policies. And sometimes, yeah, it is because you’re still young and aren’t ready to know about certain things. But just because you think something’s a secret doesn’t mean you can’t ask us about it.”

“That’s right.” Makoto smiled for the first time in the conversation. As strange as this night was, right now Hanami needed to know that this wasn’t a lecture and she wasn’t in trouble. “And just because you think something might be a secret doesn’t mean it always is. We’ll tell you if something you want to know is a secret, but sometimes you may be pleasantly surprised.”

“Not the bear hand thing, though” Ren added. “That’s just not real.”

“Okay” Hanami said through a yawn. The little girl’s body was clearly starting to catch up with how late it was. Ren and Makoto decided to end the conversation there and put her back to bed, followed by a return to their own beds.

“Our daughter has quite an imagination” Ren said.

“Yes, and she’s willing to go to some interesting lengths in the pursuit of it.” Makoto gave Ren a worried look as she reached over to turn off the light. “Should we be concerned about that?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s kind of impressive. It’s good to know she’s tenacious.”

“It’d be nice if she could put that energy into something less ridiculous.”

“She’s four. Now’s the time for her to be ridiculous. God knows I wish Ryoko’d take herself less seriously.”

“We have one daughter who’s too uptight and one who’s too much of a free spirit. I guess all we can do is hope they start to rub off on each other.”

“I’m sure if we just give them time Ryoko will learn to stop worrying about appearances so much and Hanami will find something to channel her energy into. Like her art. I bet she’ll make some great works of art someday.”

“I’m certain she will.”

* * *

The next day, Makoto found herself putting Hanami’s newest drawing on the fridge: A picture of Ren with bears for feet.

**Author's Note:**

> Felt like doin' something silly after a couple heavier Police Camp chapters. This whole thing spun out of a conversation that Hureno and I had about the "Cute Bear Gloves" weapon in Persona 5 Strikers. It nearly was crackfic about Makoto actually having bears for fists but even I couldn't quite wrap my head around how the hell to tell a story like that. Plus I always like coming back to writing about the PT kids.


End file.
